


like glitter exploding inside

by heykaylabeth



Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:00:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23433544
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/heykaylabeth/pseuds/heykaylabeth
Summary: She was working hard at a New York job, making dough, but it made her blue. One day, she was crying a lot, so she decided to move….Or: the Crazy Ex-Girlfriend AU absolutely nobody asked for.
Relationships: Erin Gilbert/Jillian Holtzmann, Kevin Beckman/Erin Gilbert
Comments: 19
Kudos: 17





	1. Prologue.

**Author's Note:**

> Umm. Hey. Long time, no see. There aren't many signs of life in this fandom nowadays but hey, happy quarantine? (it's not happy. everything is awful. i'm just trying to find any sort of silver lining.) I hope everyone is staying safe out there. Here is some absolute ridiculousness to hopefully entertain you. I've had this idea for ages but haven't been motivated to write in a long, long, long, long time. But now I have all the time in the world and I figured it was time to force some words out. If you've watched Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, EXCELLENT. You will understand all of the references! If you haven't, no biggie. Buuuut it is a really excellent show that you should watch. It's on Netflix! 
> 
> Now, I don't have the BEST history of finishing fics that I start writing. I hoped that if I ever started writing again, I would only post finished works, but as we are in the middle of a pandemic and all that shit, I figured that anything goes, so.... hopefully I'll keep up with it. Comments fuel the motivation. Let's hope for the best?
> 
> I'm so happy to spend some time with the best fandom ever again. So. Let's get to this!

**Summer. 1999.**

“You _really_ don’t think he’s cute?”

“Objectively, yeah, sure, he’s very handsome. A conventionally attractive man.”

“But _you_ don’t think he’s cute.”

“I think he’s gay.”

“He is _not!”_

“Oh, _come on,_ Erin. Look at those pants!”

“They look good on him!”

Almost everyone else they knew was probably at parties. Possibly the same party. They knew that there was at least one happening. Likely, several. They hadn’t received any invitations. Not that they had been expecting to. 

Erin had the passenger seat leaned back, the window open, feet propped up. She casually flipped through the cassette tape insert in her hands, looking at the pictures.

“I’m not saying that they don’t look good on him. I’m just saying that a heterosexual man would not wear those pants. Ricky Martin is _gay,_ Erin.”

“Whatever,” she scoffed, folding the insert up and tossing it onto the dashboard. 

The warm Battle Creek summer breeze blew through the car. The sun had almost set. They had been parked for nearly two hours now, in the lot at the beginning of a less popular hiking trail -- a quiet refuge where they often found themselves. The graduation caps and gowns that they’d worn just a few hours earlier were tossed into the cluttered backseat.

Abby’s car was one or two rough potholes away from the junkyard, but it had gotten them this far. To the end of high school. 

“So, you know that old sawmill I was telling you about?” Abby asked, changing the subject. 

“The one by your grandparents?”

“Yeah. I think it’s legitimate. Nobody’s lived in it for years but apparently people see kids playing in the attic _all the time.”_

“I want to go!”

“We will!”

“I still haven’t even asked my parents if I _can_ go.”

“They can’t stop you. You’re an adult! You’ve graduated high school!”

“I know, I know. But you know my parents,” Erin sighed, slumping down further into her seat.

“Yeah, yeah,” Abby nodded. “Blah, blah, blah, last summer before college, spend time with your family, blah, blah.”

“Exactly.”

It was a plan that they had been working on for months, now. Abby was going back to the town where she had spent most of her childhood, where she had lived before Battle Creek, where her grandparents still were. She was going for two weeks, and Erin was coming with her. At least, that was the plan. Erin was worried. Her parents _liked_ Abby, sure. They were glad that Erin even _had_ a friend. But they didn’t exactly approve of their interests and hobbies. And she wasn’t sure how they would feel about her spending two weeks on the other side of the country, even if they _didn’t_ know about their plans to investigate haunted abandoned sawmills. 

She’d already planned her entire argument out. 

“It’s my last chance to have fun for _at least_ ten years! In order to get my PhD in the least amount of time possible, I’m going to be working nonstop, through summers and everything. While everyone else is using college to socialize, I’m using it to learn and advance my career! Which means that I should use this summer to socialize before I can’t do it anymore!”

It worked. _Barely_. But it did.

So, only a few weeks later, Abby and Erin giggled their way through the Kalamazoo airport, boarding passes in hand, prepared for the nearly-seven-hour flight with books on paranormal activity and notebooks to plan out the details of their most anticipated activity -- the journey to the Walker-Ames House. 

Abby’s grandfather picked them up from the Seattle-Tacoma airport in the late afternoon. The drive from the airport to the small town where they were staying was over an hour long. Erin looked out the window, taking in the overwhelming _green_ of it all. In eastern time, it was only early evening, slowly turning into night. It was only a three hour difference. Erin didn’t imagine that she would feel at all jet-lagged, but the movement of the car and the gentle murmur of Abby’s conversation with her grandfather lulled Erin into sleep. 

“Erin. _Eeeeeeriiiiiiin.”_

Her eyes fluttered open. Abby’s face was in front of hers, grining. 

“We’re here!”

She turned her head, noticing that the car was parked in a driveway, in front of a cute, green house. There were houses on either side, but with plenty of open space between them -- nothing like her stereotypical suburban neighbourhood in Battle Creek. In the distance, there were trees -- _so many trees._ And hills. And water. When she got out of the car, the air that filled her lungs was somehow different than the air she was used to breathing. It seemed fresher. Invigorating. Abby must have noticed because she smiled and took a deep breath in.

“Ahh, that west coast air, right?” she laughed. Erin laughed too, nodded, and opened her mouth to respond. But before she could speak, she was interrupted by a loud voice to their left.

“No _way!”_

They both turned towards the source of the words. At the house next door, a car sat out front, in even worse shape than Abby’s. And quickly rushing over from that car….

“ _Abby?! Abby freakin’ Yates?!”_

“Kevin!” Abby shouted, grinning from ear to ear. 

He said something else, but Erin didn’t hear it. Abby said something, too, but Erin didn’t hear that, either. It was as if all noise had ceased to exist. But in a good way. She felt as if all of the fresh, west coast air had been forced from her lungs. But in a good way. Her limbs went numb. But in a good way. The only sensations left were the pounding of her heart and the overwhelming fluttering in her stomach, up to her chest, lingering in her throat.

“Kevin, this is my best friend, Erin!”

“Erin,” she repeated in a dazed sort of mumble. “Erin. With an _E.”_

“Erin with an E,” the beautiful boy named Kevin confirmed. “E-R-E-N?”

“Huh?” She could barely process anything other than that _face._ She shook her head, forced out a laugh. “No. No. Just one E. Begins with an E. Ends with an I. I mean, before the N. E-R-I-N.”

“Oh,” Kevin laughed again. His smile was brilliant. When he smiled, it was like glitter exploding inside her. “So just, normal girl Erin, then?”

“Yeah!” she exclaimed, a little too loudly, a little too enthusiastically. Abby was looking at her, confused 

“Nice to meet you, Erin.”

His smile. Glitter. He had an accent. Australian? Her heart beat even faster.

“Well, listen, Ab, I’m so happy that you’re here. We’ve _got_ to hang out, okay? I’ve gotta go help Mom with some stuff, but let’s catch up, maybe tomorrow?”

“Yeah, I don’t think we have any plans for tomorrow other than just going down to the Village and waterfront. You could come with us if you’re free!”

“That sounds _awesome._ Call me with the details in the morning?”

“Totally,” Abby nodded.

As he walked away, Erin finally began to regain feeling in her fingertips.

“You okay?” Abby asked her.

“Who is he?”

“Kevin? He’s a neighbour. We went to school together before I moved. I’ve known him since… fourth grade.”

“And you...never mentioned him?”

“I’m sure I have,” she laughed. “Why?”

“Has he always _looked like that?!”_

“Looked… like what?”

“Abby, you can’t be serious.”

“What, do you think he’s cute?” she asked.

“You _don’t?!”_

“ _Kevin?!”_ she cringed. “God, no.”

“ _What?!”_

“Oh my god, you think _Kevin_ is cute,” Abby laughed. “Come on, let’s go inside before you _drool_ yourself to death.”

Erin followed her towards the front door, taking a last look in the direction of Kevin’s beat-up car before going inside. Her insides fluttered about. She thought about seeing him again the following day and could barely keep the smile off of her face. 

She couldn’t wait.


	2. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, a few hours after I posted the prologue yesterday, the news broke that Adam Schlesinger, one of the geniuses behind Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, passed away from COVID-19. I am... so very very very sad about this. He wrote some of the most incredible songs and he was still so young and it's such an awful awful loss and everything is terrible. Since this story is completely ripped off of CXGF, it felt appropriate to make note of that because he's one of the reasons this story even exists. 
> 
> That being said, I want to thank you for the comments on the first section. I'm so happy to be writing again. I hope you enjoy this next chapter.

**Present day.**

Erin wakes up before her alarm, but she stays in bed anyways. She hits the snooze button four times before she finally pulls herself out from under her blankets. Her apartment makes her eyes hurt. The walls are too white. A single framed piece of art hangs near her bed. Sometimes, at night, she feels like she’s in a hotel room. It’s all perfectly nice. It’s clean and organized and well-decorated. But it isn’t hers. Even though it is.

Her morning routine is just that: routine. She hardly notices what she’s doing anymore. She’s just finished zipping up her skirt when her cell phone rings. She doesn’t even look at the screen as she answers.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Are you ready for today? Have you prepared everything that you’re going to say?”

“Mm,” she hums, feigning distraction, as if she hasn’t been obsessing over this day for ages. She glances at her clock, noting that she has plenty of time to talk to her mother before she has to leave.  _ Dammit.  _ “Yeah, yeah, I think so.”

“You  _ think  _ so? You only  _ think  _ you’re ready or you only think you’re prepared?”

“Um. Yeah. No. I.... I’m ready. I’m prepared.”

“Honestly, Erin, I don’t understand how you can be so passive about all of this. I don’t know what happened. You used to be so ambitious. And now you’re  _ finally  _ getting your chance at tenure and you don’t even seem to care.”

“I  _ care,”  _ she argues. “I care, Mom. I’m just. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Well, if that’s the attitude you’re going to have, then you might as well just give up now.”

“ _ Jesus _ ,” she mutters, shaking her head.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, Mom.”

“You know who the youngest professor at Columbia to get tenure was?”

“Yes, Mom, I do.”

“And how old are you?”

“Older than he was,” she sighs. They’ve had this exact conversation too many times to count. 

“I push you because I  _ care,  _ Erin.”

“I know, Mom.”

“Your father never appreciated that, you know. He’s always said I’m too hard on you, but he sure likes to brag about how his daughter has a PhD,” she says with a sharp, condescending laugh. “As if  _ he _ helped at all.”

Erin sighs again, dropping down onto her bed. They’ve reached the part of the conversation that she always tries her best to block out. 

“He’ll see when that son of his turns out to be some lowlife. He’ll see.”

“You’ve never even met his son, Mom. There’s no way you can say that.”

“You haven’t met him, either.”

“Yeah. Yeah, okay,” she agrees, immediately dropping it. “Mom, I’ve gotta go, I--”

“You don’t have to leave for another twenty minutes.”

“I know, but I--”

“You didn’t sleep in, did you? Did you sleep in the morning of your tenure review?”

“I…,” she trails off. “No, I just. I… I want to prepare a little before I go in.”

It’s a flat-out lie, but her mother seems happy with it. When she hangs up the phone, she continues to sit on her bed, staring at the blindingly white wall in front of her. 

She can’t remember the last time she felt something.

She presses the palms of her hands together in her lap.

Tenure.

It’s what she’s been going after for years. It’s The Goal. If she achieves it, then surely she will feel... something. 

She puts on her blazer and looks at herself in the mirror. She sees… a professional woman. An esteemed professor. An asset to modern physics. It’s the same list she recites to herself each morning -- a suggestion from a former therapist. She doesn’t really know if it helps her or not, but she’s been doing it for so long that it would just be a hassle to stop.

As she approaches campus, she puts on a smile. She greets professors and students as she passes them. A group of musical theatre kids are gathered near the entrance of the building. She knows that they’re musical theatre kids because they keep taking turns singing. 

“ _ It’s a siiiiiign,”  _ one of the students wails.

Erin reaches the door.

“ _ I don’t know how I know, but I’m gonna find my purpose!”  _

The door closes behind her, drowning the singing out. 

“Oh, Dr. Gilbert!”

She’s barely made it halfway to her office when she hears her name behind her. It’s one of the administrative faculty members in the science department. 

“Oh, hi, Louise,” Erin smiles.

“Listen,” Louise continues, walking alongside Erin through the halls, towards her office. “I’m not sure if I should tell you or not…”

“Tell me what?”

“I overheard something,” Louise stops, turns and faces Erin. Erin stops, too. Louise smiles. “It’s good. It’s really, really good.”

“What…?”

“I overheard Dr Filmore this morning! He’s offering you tenure!” she spills excitedly. 

“He--” Erin begins, feeling caught completely off guard. Suddenly, ‘ _ tenure’  _ doesn’t even sound like a real word and the entire statement makes absolutely no sense at all.  _ He’s offering you tenure.  _

It’s what she’s wanted. It’s The Goal. If she’s actually achieved it, then she should feel….

Panic?

“I--,” she stutters, slowly backing away from the other woman. 

“I’m so happy for you!”

“Um.” She can only nod. 

Happy.

“Happy,” she says out loud. “So… so happy.”

“I know!”

“I’ve gotta--” she turns, looking down the hall in the direction she had been heading in. She turns again, looking back at where she came. “I forgot.”

“What?”

“I’ve gotta… go… get…” she doesn’t know what she’s saying. She’s just putting words together. “Go get… a, um. Bagel.”

“You’ve gotta go get a bagel?” Louise laughs.

“Mm… mmhm. Yeah. I, uh. Low blood sugar. I forgot to have breakfast this morning. I’ve gotta--”

She doesn’t even finish her sentence. She just begins to walk as fast as she can, away, back through the hall, towards the door through which she had entered only a few minutes ago.

_ “I’m gonna find my purpose! Could be far, could be near, could take a week, a month, a yeeeaaaar!” _

She doesn’t understand how the same person is still singing the same song. She walks faster, her breath catching in her throat. Her stomach churns unpleasantly. Her chest feels tight.

Is this what  _ happy  _ feels like?

Before she knows it, she’s walking down Broadway with no real idea of where she’s going. She just needs….

_ It’s a siiiiign. _

The stupid musical theatre kid’s voice echoes through her mind. 

“Shut up, shut up, shut up,” she mumbles to herself. She’s struggling to breathe and she doesn’t even know  _ why.  _ Her ears are ringing and her eyes sting and this physical reaction is not one that she would normally associate with happiness, but.

“This is what happy feels like,” she tells herself. “This is what happy feels like. This is what happy feels like.”

It has to be. Because she’s getting what she’s wanted for so long. She should be happy. She  _ needs  _ to be happy.

“ _ This is what happy feels like _ .”

She finds herself in an alleyway between two buildings, empty aside from trash. She leans against the brick wall.

_ This is what happy feels like. _

She steadies her breathing, closing her eyes, taking in the New York City smells of trash and urine.  _ This is what happy feels like.  _

She opens her eyes. On the wall in front of her is a poster that she didn’t notice at first. It seems like a strange place for a poster, and given the beaten-up state of it, it also seems completely forgotten about. She squints her eyes and tilts her head.

**AVENUE Q.**

**FINAL PERFORMANCE: MAY 26, 2019.**

**FIND YOUR PURPOSE.**

She stares at it.  _ Find your purpose.  _ She takes a deep breath in -- and instantly regrets it because the alleyway smells  _ awful.  _ She keeps staring at the poster. It feels like... _ a sign? _

“That’s stupid,” she tells herself. “You don’t even believe in… You are a woman of science. You are going to be a tenured professor at Columbia.  _ This is what happy feels like.”  _

She attempts to convince herself to leave the alley, to go back to campus, get in her office, and wait until her meeting with Dr. Filmore and  _ accept the tenure.  _

She can’t make her feet move.

She looks out towards the open street, at the people passing by, none of them noticing the middle-aged woman having a nervous breakdown in a smelly alleyway. 

And then--

She can hardly even believe her own eyes. 

It’s as if all noise ceases to exist. But in a good way. She feels as if all of the trash-and-urine-scented air has been forced from her lungs. But in a good way. Her limbs go numb. But in a good way. The only sensations left are the pounding of her heart and the overwhelming fluttering in her stomach, up to her chest, lingering in her throat.

Suddenly, her feet are moving without any thought at all.

“ _ Kevin!” _

He turns. And it’s him. It’s absolutely him.

“Kevin,” she says again. “Kevin Beckman.”

He looks confused, and Erin remembers that they haven’t seen each other in  _ decades _ , and sure, they had some magical, first-time moments together, but she’s not eighteen anymore, and of course she looks different. Even though he somehow looks  _ exactly the same,  _ just...older. And  _ even more handsome. _

“It’s...it’s Erin. Erin Gilbert. From--”

“Oh, my god!” he shouts. “Oh my god, Erin!”

And he’s right in front of her, and she can’t believe that he’s right in front of her.

“How-- why-- you’re in New York!” she manages to get out. And he grins and nods.

“Yeah!”

“Oh, my god! Why are you in New York?”

“Why am I in New York? Why are  _ you  _ in New York?” he responds, crossing his arms over his chest -- his extraordinarily  _ muscular  _ arms.

“I live here!”

“No way! I live here, too!”

“You-- what? You do? You live here?!”

“Well,” he tilts his head, giving her a crooked half-smile. “Sort of. I’m actually moving back home. Tomorrow.”

“You’re...oh,” she says. “Wow. Wow. You’re… back to Australia?”

“Oh, no,” he laughs, shaking his head. “I mean, yeah, I guess Australia is technically home, isn’t it? Weirdly, I hardly even think of it as that anymore. No, no, I’m heading back to Poulsbo.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, you know, I came out here to try the whole  _ actor  _ thing. But… I don’t know. I don’t think New York and I are really meant for each other, y’know?”

“Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah, I do know.”

“Everyone here is just so…  _ blegh.  _ No offense. But in Poulsbo, it’s just. Everyone is so  _ happy _ .”

_ Happy. _

“Happy,” Erin repeats, smiling. “Yeah.”

“I-- Wow. I can’t believe I’ve run into you! Especially on my last day here! What are you up to? What are you doing these days?!”

“Oh, I uh, I’m a professor. At Columbia. Physics.”

“Of  _ course  _ you are.”

“Yeah, I actually, um. I was just offered tenure.”

“Wow!” he exclaims. “I really don’t know what that means, but it sounds very important and very impressive!”

Erin laughs. And it’s  _ real.  _ The smile plastered across her face isn’t forced. It’s  _ real. _

“It is pretty important and impressive, yeah.”

“Damn, if I’d have known you’d end up as such an important and impressive bigshot, well… maybe I wouldn’t have let you go so easily,” he punctuates it with a wink, and Erin’s knees go weak. 

“Yeah, well,” she giggles, not at all sure of how to respond. 

“Well, listen… wow, I still can’t even believe I’m seeing you right now. But… damn, I’ve… I have so much packing left to do and I really should get going.”

“Oh, yeah, right, of course.”

“I wish we could spend more time catching up.”

“Well, hey! Maybe we could go get lunch sometime, or-- wait, no. No. You’re moving. Duh. You literally  _ just  _ said that.”

He laughs again.

“If you are ever in Poulsbo for any reason, I promise, it’s a date.”

“Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That sounds, yeah,” she nods enthusiastically. 

“Erin, I’m so happy we ran into each other.”

“Me too!”

“I’ll see you next time fate allows it, yeah?”

“Yeah. Wow. Yeah.”

She watches him walk away, feeling all of the familiar feelings she hasn’t felt in years.

She walks back to the college in a daze, replaying the conversation in her head over and over again. 

_ But in Poulsbo, it’s just. Everyone is so happy. _

_ Happy. _

_ Happy.  _

_ This  _ is what happy feels like.

“Dr. Gilbert, after plenty of consideration, it is my pleasure to offer you tenure.”

Erin stares across the desk at Dr. Filmore. She smiles.

“No, thank you.”

“We can--” he stops abruptly and looks at her, confused. “I’m sorry, what did you say?”

“I said no. No. Thank you. Thank you, but no.”

“Dr. Gilbert, I don’t understand.”

“It’s pretty simple, sir. I’m...turning it down.”

“You are… turning down your tenure?” he clarifies.

“Yes,” she nods calmly. 

“Nobody… nobody has ever turned down tenure before.”

“Really?” she asks.

“Yes, really,” he confirms, a sharp edge to his tone. “You understand that tenure is a great honor and distinction within this institution.”

“Yes, yes, I do.”

“Why on  _ earth  _ would you turn it down?”

“Because I’m quitting.”

“You are-- I’m sorry,  _ what?” _

“Yeah,” she nods. “Yeah. I quit.”

“Where is this coming from, Dr. Gilbert?!”

“You know, I think I just need a change. Yeah. Some sort of change.”

“ _ Change?!” _

“Yeah.”

She stands up.

“Thank you so much and I’m really sorry. But I’m gonna go now.”

“ _ Dr. Gilbert!” _

She smiles the entire time on her way out.

“ _ Gotta find my purpose! Gotta find me!” _


End file.
